Korean Air uses passenger jets as cargo carriers amid virus woes

Korean Air Lines Co., South Korea's biggest airline by sales, said Monday it has begun to use passenger jets to transport cargo on suspended routes amid the spreading coronavirus outbreak. Korean Air initially started to use grounded passenger aircraft to deliver cargo on routes to Ho Chi Minh City of Vietnam and Qingdao of China on Friday, the company said in a statement.  "The company is in talks with aviation authorities to expand the alternative use of passenger jets as cargo

IndustryMarch 16, 2020

[Newsmaker] Coupang deliveryman found dead attempting late-night delivery

A deliveryman was found dead while working after midnight for Coupang. The exact cause of death is not known. According to the Korean Public Service and Transport Workers’ Union on Sunday, the 46-year-old contract worker, surnamed Kim, was found Thursday around 2 a.m. between the fourth and fifth floors of a residential building in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province. The building had no elevator. “Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, deliveries of heavy daily necessities such as rice, drinking wa

IndustryMarch 16, 2020

More firms adopt anti-virus steps for shareholder meetings

More South Korean companies are ramping up virus prevention measures for their upcoming shareholder meetings by adopting electronic voting to join the country's efforts to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus. Of the some 2,300 listed firms here, a total of 314 companies, including Samsung Electronics Co. and Hyundai Motor Co., will hold shareholder meetings this week amid concerns of COVID-19 infections. South Korea has so far reported more than 8,200 coronavirus cases.  Accordi

IndustryMarch 16, 2020

S. Korea facing more trade barriers from emerging nations: report

Emerging countries launched dozens of new investigations against goods from South Korea in line with growing protectionism around the globe, data showed Monday. Such countries accounted for 34 of the 41 new trade investigation cases against Asia's No. 4 economy in 2019, according to the data compiled by the Korea International Trade Association (KITA). The United States launched five new investigations against South Korea, with Australia and the European Union taking up one each. Emerging nat

EconomyMarch 16, 2020

Samsung Foundry Forum in Silicon Valley postponed over pandemic

Samsung Electronics’ annual forums on its semiconductor foundry business strategy for this year have been postponed due to the new coronavirus pandemic, the tech giant said Monday. The company posted the notice on its forum registration website. The first event of the forums was to be held in California’s Silicon Valley on May 20 and was supposed to kick-start the annual forum series that takes place worldwide, including in China, Japan and Germany. “The forums are pushed

TechnologyMarch 16, 2020

Airlines to apply no fuel surcharges on int'l routes in April

South Korean airlines will apply no fuel surcharges on international routes in April to reflect declining oil prices, industry officials said Monday. The surcharges for one-way tickets on international routes will drop to zero next month from 19,200 won ($15) in March, an industry official said. If the average jet fuel price on the Singapore spot market rises over $1.50 per gallon, South Korean airlines are allowed to impose fuel surcharges starting one month later. Jet fuel prices averaged

MobilityMarch 16, 2020

Hyundai Heavy clinches 400b-won deal to build 1 frigate

Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., the world's largest shipbuilder in terms of the value of orders last year, said Monday that it has won a 400 billion-won ($330 million) order to build one frigate for the South Korean Navy. Under the deal with South Korea's Defense Acquisition Program Administration, Hyundai Heavy will deliver the 3,500-ton ship by 2024 to the country's Navy. The deal is for the first of six new 3,500-ton frigate vessels to be delivered to the Navy. The ship -- 129 meters long

IndustryMarch 16, 2020

BOK under growing pressure to cut rate following Fed rate reduction

The Bank of Korea will have no choice but to take all available measures to shield the local economy against further damage from the outbreak of the new coronavirus, including a base rate reduction, especially since the US Fed cut its own rates to nearly zero, analysts here said Monday. "The Bank of Korea too must now take steps due to the confusion in the local financial market," said Korea Investment & Securities analyst Ahn Jae-kyun. "Like the central banks of other majo

EconomyMarch 16, 2020

Corporate bond issues, trading dip amid coronavirus

Corporate bond issuance and transactions in South Korea fell last week as investors remained spooked by the spread of the new coronavirus, data showed Monday. South Korean companies floated bonds worth 1.1 trillion won ($900 million) during the one-week period between March 6 and Thursday, compared with 1.5 trillion won a week earlier, according to the data from bond rater NICE Pricing & Information. Trading volume of corporate bonds also decreased by 216.7 billion won to 2.74 trillion wo

BusinessMarch 16, 2020

[Feature] Ditching middlemen: brands strive to lure consumers directly

More individual brands have been turning to a direct-to-consumer strategy in South Korea, investing in their own online retail outlets and mobile applications to reduce dependence on giant middlemen, or e-commerce platforms. As the preference for online shopping continues to grow -- particularly amid the coronavirus-enforced self-isolation recently -- competition among online retailers has been intensifying to the point that the line separating different industries is slowly blurring.　 Indust

ConsumerMarch 15, 2020

Korean conglomerates to hold shareholders meeting despite COVID-19

A total of 314 South Korean companies, including Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor and SK hynix, will hold shareholders meetings this week. The companies have rolled out measures to counter concerns over potential spread of the coronavirus at the meetings. Samsung Electronics’ annual shareholders meeting is scheduled for Wednesday at Suwon Convention Center in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, with around 2,000 seats available. Samsung Electronics previously asked shareholders to make extensiv

IndustryMarch 15, 2020

BOK likely to cut rate this week amid calls for more stimulus

South Korea’s central bank is likely to convene an emergency meeting of its monetary policy board this week to slash its interest rates to a record-low of 1 percent, amid growing calls to beef up economic stimulus against the novel coronavirus outbreak. On Friday, Bank of Korea Gov. Lee Ju-yeol attended a special economic meeting related to coronavirus at Cheong Wa Dae, presided by President Moon Jae-in. Economy-related ministers including Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Hong

EconomyMarch 15, 2020

Coronavirus wipes out more than $16tr from global stock markets

The fast-spreading novel coronavirus outbreak has erased $16.7 trillion market capitalization in global stock markets, according to news reports Sunday. The overall market cap in 86 nations dropped 18.7 percent, from $89. 2 trillion on Jan. 20 to $72.5 trillion on March 12, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The market cap loss during the volatile past few weeks is approximately tenfold that of South Korea’s nominal gross domestic product, standing at $1.6 trillion in 2019. Th

MarketMarch 15, 2020

Shinhan Bank’s call center workers start remote working

Shinhan Bank said Sunday that its call center employees will start remote working as part of its preventive measures against the spread of the new coronavirus.  A total of 150 call center employees working regular hours of 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. will start working from home starting Monday. The list, however excludes those who deal with telecommunications fraud and sign language. The decision came amid growing concerns over mass transmission of the virus at call centers. Earlier, nearly 102

MarketMarch 15, 2020

Bank deposits surge amid market volatility fears

South Korean banks are seeing a surge in deposits, reflecting investors’ concerns amid growing uncertainties in the capital market, according to latest data Sunday. Nearly 36 trillion won ($30 billion) flowed into bank deposits last month -- the largest in five years -- Bank of Korea data showed.  According to the central bank, the combined bank deposits came to nearly 1770.1 trillion won, up 35.9 trillion won from a month earlier, the biggest monthly change since Dec. 2014

MarketMarch 15, 2020

[Herald Interview] ‘Korea’s impact investors should seek cross-border deals’

South Korea was the first country in East Asia to introduce a legal definition for impact investment under the Promotion of Social Enterprises Act in 2007, which paved the way for a mature ecosystem. Impact investments aim to generate specific beneficial social or environmental effects in addition to financial gains -- actively seeking to make a positive impact, for example, by investing in nonprofits that benefit the community or in clean-technology enterprises that benefit the environment.

MarketMarch 15, 2020

KITA’s online export platforms help firms overcome virus outbreak

The Korea International Trade Association is bolstering remote online export platforms to help domestic companies facing difficulties in export to find new export channels amid the coronavirus outbreak. The KITA said Sunday it has shifted its marketing efforts to the online sphere, strengthening its online business-to-business and business-to-consumer export platforms as series of offline export marketing events have been canceled or delayed by the worsening COVID-19 outbreak. According to

IndustryMarch 15, 2020

Stocks of major firms plunge over coronavirus spread

Major listed South Korean firms have seen a sharp drop in market capitalization by losing a combined 174 trillion won ($142 billion), down more than 20 percent, in the last 52 days, according to latest data Sunday. Local corporate tracker Korea CXO Institute surveyed the share price of 100 listed Korean companies -- top five in 20 industries -- between Jan. 20, when the first confirmed coronavirus case was reported here, and Thursday, after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pan

IndustryMarch 15, 2020

Hyundai signs $60m bus supply deal with Turkmenistan

Hyundai Motor said Sunday it has signed a $60 million bus supply deal with Turkmenistan. It has signed a contract with Turkmenistan’s Ministry of Transport to supply 400 New Super Aero City buses, the South Korean automaker said. It is Hyundai’s second-biggest single overseas deal, after a $66 million order for 500 units in 2016. The New Super Aero City bus features upgraded functions compared to previous models, including rear-view camera and rear cross-traffic alert function

MobilityMarch 15, 2020

S. Korea-US trade volume expands 32% on bilateral FTA

Trade volume between South Korea and the United States totaled $135.2 billion last year, up 32 percent from $101.8 billion posted in 2012, when a bilateral free trade agreement went into effect, government data showed Sunday. Trade volume between the two countries in 2019 also moved up 2.7 percent on-year, which is significant considering South Korea's overall trade with the world plunged 8.3 percent over the period to $1.04 trillion, according to the data compiled by the Ministry of Trade, In

EconomyMarch 15, 2020